Sunday, 14 June 2015

The Red Dress, a simple medieval style pattern

This post was moved here from our main website in 2015

The cut of this dress is based on practical experimentation
rather than on a known period cutting method- but it does leave very little waste and can be pieced together out of narrower cloth very
easily.

Start with two lengths of fabric long enough to reach shoulders
to floor (plus, hem, train etc.).

Make basic shoulder seams to allow you to slip it over your head
and mark where your waist will come.

Attach a folded rectangle of fabric on either side at waist
level. If the fabric is narrow you may need more than one rectangle.

Have a friend fit the bodice to the body, you will need to cut
either a front or back opening to get out at this stage-this dress laces shut but could also be buttoned. (It would look very good with
a row of buttons down the front and many small decorative buttons up to the elbows
on the sleeves.)

Once the bodice is fitted, you should be able to see where the
fabric of the skirt touches the floor. Mark the hemline with chalk and spread
the skirt out to tidy up the lines before cutting away the surplus (shown in
grey on one side of the diagram above).

You may find you have sufficient offcuts in the skirt to make
plain or hanging sleeves (if you go for hanging sleeves or tippets over
contrasting plain sleeves you may have no fabric waste whatsoever!) If not, cut
sleeves in an appropriate style out of extra fabric.

I find its easier to fully line a dress like this, as to hand
hem it is a huge job, it also deals with the neck and lacing opening very neatly. That probably isn't a period method, but this is often made as a 'fancy dress' item rather than a high end authenticity item, so its a method that has its place.

However you finish it, tidy all the edges and add lacing holes
or buttons to finish. (NB: I used some of my spare fabric to add another small
gore in the back of the skirt- but it was overkill really!)

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Our other pages

Our main website is at www.sallypointer.com, we've been moving the projects and more 'conversational' posts over to this blog to keep the main site a bit less cluttered. You'll also find our online shop there.

We also have another blog, Wicked Woollens, where I post about (mostly) things to do with knitting, wool or textiles. There will end up being an overlap with this blog.